Alaska Man Monday - Independence Day Edition

Last Thursday, we celebrated Alaska’s Independence Day with a great classic event – the Glacier View Car Launch. Those of you with a VIP membership (and if you don’t have one, you should. Use promo code SAVEAMERICA for a 50% discount) have doubtlessly read my account and viewed the video of this Alaskan extravaganza, but there were more Independence Day events here in the Great Land. On this rainy Alaska Monday, it seems appropriate to show you some of the rest of the Alaskan celebrations. So let’s dive in!

Anchorage parade

Kind of a big deal; most Alaskan communities have a parade, as Alaskans tend to be a patriotic lot. But as Anchorage is the Great Land’s primary population center, so do they have one of the biggest parades.

With a rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner” and a reading of the Declaration of Independence as a backdrop, those who attended the celebration said they felt proud to be Americans.
“It’s a very exciting day,” Anchorage International Rotary Club member Bruce Erickson said. “It’s the one-day patriotism thing, but the more you learn about 1776 and all that kind of stuff, it means more and more all the time.”
There’s been a positive response to the Rotary Club’s nearby “Field of Honor” flag display, Erickson said.
“We reserve a little spot out here to just sit in the middle of [the flags] because people like doing that,” he said. “Kids love it. People love to take pictures of kids and dogs and all sorts of stuff. And it’s just a fun thing to do to remind everybody we’re pretty darn lucky to live here.”

More notable events took place in Wasilla, Homer, and Seward. We love us a good Independence Day shindig!

Alaska Man Score: 5 moose nuggets. America!

Of course, some couldn’t just let us enjoy the day without injecting politics into it. Why? Why do they have to do this?

And they have to make it political.

Fourth of July parades in the Fairbanks North Star Borough were markedly different between the enclave of Ester and the town of North Pole. As different as the politics of the two towns.
In Ester, Democrat candidate Savannah Fletcher, running for Senate, and Democrat Rep. Ashley Carrick, running to keep her seat in the House, were featured arm-in-arm in the precinct that would tend to favor them. With them was school board candidate Morgan Dulian, who led the recent effort to bust the borough tax cap and raise property taxes. She was walking the parade with Carrick, who spent her time in the 33rd legislature working on HB 17, a gender-identity bill.
Ester is left-leaning. In 2016’s election for president, 268 voters cast their ballot for Hillary Clinton, with 159 voting for Donald Trump. In 2018, Gov. Mike Dunleavy only got one-third of the vote in Ester.

Read the room, people. Independence Day should be the one day when we are all just Americans. We can pick the political crap back up on the 5^th of July, although out of decency, you would think that the pols would wait until Monday.

Alaska Man Score: No moose nuggets for you! There’s a time and place for politicking, and this isn’t it.

This, though, is how it’s done. In every community, some need a little help at times, and there is a right way to do this; the community pulls together and helps those who need it. These things are best handled locally because when a neighbor asks you for help, you help him.

And small communities take care of their own.

The second annual LINKS Resource Fair was held on sunny June 27 at Wonderland Park in Wasilla, once again celebrating service to the Mat-Su community with an even bigger turnout than last year.
Aaron Wright, Executive Director of the LINKS Resource Center, said that turnout from the community and the nonprofits exceeded last year, with over 60 community non-profits represented at the fair, nearly doubling the size of last year’s fair.
“We had over 68 nonprofit organizations sign up this year, over the 40 we had last year, so we gained a lot of nonprofit organizations. We’ve had well over 250 people come through the gates,” said Wright.

Just as bad gas travels fast in a small town, so does good news. The non-profits and community service groups represented at this annual Wasilla event exist to serve the community, and they aren’t whining about the need for taxpayers to endlessly pony up; they are just taking care of things on their own.

Alaska Man Score: 5 moose nuggets. Well done to all involved.

Finally, I’d like to show you the beginnings of our new machine shed! We have a long list of things to be done on our property, but here's the first look at what will become a classic Alaskan woodshed/machine shed.